“I will not eat the littlest piece,” said Fionn.
“I am sure you will not,” the other murmured, as he turned and walked slowly across the grass and behind the sheltering bushes on the ridge.
Fionn cooked the salmon. It was beautiful and tempting and savoury as it smoked on a wooden platter among cool green leaves; and it looked all these to Finegas when he came from behind the fringing bushes and sat in the grass outside his door. He gazed on the fish with more than his eyes. He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, and when he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the love that was in his eyes was for the fish or for himself. Yet he did know that a great moment had arrived for the poet.
“So,” said Finegas, “you did not eat it on me after all?” “Did I not promise?” Fionn replied.
“And yet,” his master continued, “I went away so that you might eat the fish if you felt you had to.”
“Why should I want another man’s fish?” said proud Fionn.
“Because young people have strong desires. I thought you might have tasted it, and then you would have eaten it on me.”
“I did taste it by chance,” Fionn laughed, “for while the fish was roasting a great blister rose on its skin. I did not like the look of that blister, and I pressed it down with my thumb. That burned my thumb, so I popped it in my mouth to heal the smart. If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will taste very nice.”
“What did you say your name was, dear heart?” the poet asked.
“I said my name was Deimne.”